Daily Devotional • November 19
A Reading from Revelation 21:9-21
9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names that are the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites: 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city has four equal sides, its length the same as its width, and he measured the city with his rod, twelve thousand stadia; its length and width and height are equal. 17 He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. 18 The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.
Meditation
John’s description of this city, the holy city of New Jerusalem, is incredibly vivid. Its radiance is as that of God, a jewel, clear as crystal. There are walls and gates and angels, and 12 foundations (for the Twelve Apostles). The size of this city is immense, about 1,500 miles long, 1,500 miles wide, and 1,500 miles high — about the distance from Kansas City to Portland, Maine, cubed! And the image continues: jewels and precious metals, jasper and gold, sapphire and agate and emeralds — on and on. And each gate is a giant pearl, and the streets are transparent, pure gold. Such splendor and majesty!
One of my favorite Advent devotional books is Between Two Worlds by Kate Moorehead. She tells of a woman who had a dream in which the sky was torn open just a bit. Through the tear in the air, she saw a piece of heaven, and tearfully described her vision, “There were colors there. Colors more vibrant, more real than anything I have ever seen. They made everything here seem like it exists in black, white, and gray. There were colors ….”
Like that woman, when John and other biblical witnesses like Ezekiel and Daniel try to write what they saw, the words they use come across as inadequate, trying to explain the unexplainable, the unimaginable. John saw jewels and gold, walls and angels, a colossal city. And there were colors!
The Very Rev. Sherry Black is a second-career Episcopal priest, and has been a full-time hospital chaplain for over ten years. She also serves a small mission church as priest-in-charge, and is dean of her deanery.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Grace Episcopal Church, Sheboygan, Wisconsin
The Diocese of Remo – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
